3 Sides To Every Triangle
by woodrosegirl
Summary: The story of Addison/Derek/Mark in New York. 3 Chapters from each side of the story.
1. Addison

Title: Three sides to every Triangle. 1/3

Rating: R

Pairing: Addison/Derek/Mark

Summary: The story of Addison/Derek/Mark in New York.

3 Chapters from each side of the story. This one is Addison's.

Disclaimer: It's all Shonda. Not moi.

The alarm buzzes besides her but she's already been awake for an hour. Addison knows that when she wakes up Derek won't be beside her. She knows because that's the way it's been for months.

She knows that she will go downstairs and find her husband asleep on the sofa. She'll ask him why he didn't come to bed and the reply is always the same.

"Late night" he'll mumble "didn't want to wake you"

The morning's seem to follow this same pattern constantly. He'll roll over on the sofa and she'll go into the kitchen to make coffee. Most mornings she finds herself gazing through the window trying to remind herself that it wasn't always like this.

He never used to mind waking her up, and she was glad of it as it meant that he wanted to spend every spare second with her, even if she was half asleep. Even up to as recently as six months ago he would creep in and wake her up in the best way possible.

Now those moments have gone, and the hospital feels less and less a place to work in, it's his excuse not to see her.

After coffee she'll get ready, trying to hider the bags and puffy eyes while he stays downstairs. He always says the same sentence before she leaves, and she matches it.

"Love you, goodbye"

However each day it feels more and more routine and their words lack their usual emotion.

She goes to work every day feeling empty, and she too starts to use the hospital as an excuse, an excuse not to think about Derek, their marriage and the ever growing distance between them.

She blames herself for not doing anything about it, but she's tired of trying. When it started she tried all the usual tactics of getting him to talk to her, but he even stopped arguing with her.

They've had arguments before, and even ignored each other for days but it always resolved itself by one of them apologising, then making it up to each other with amazing make up sex.

Even the sex itself has fizzled out. Derek used to look at her with such passion and longing in his eyes that it thrilled her. The last time they made love she felt like they were performing a well rehearsed routine, and he kept his eyes shut the whole time.

She knows when she returns home from work that she will be dining alone, and it's this loneliness that propels her into the arms of Mark.

Tired of dinner's for one she invites him round and revels in the fact that someone is paying attention to her, someone is seeing her. It makes her feel sexy, confident and alive.

Once it starts she feels as if something is unleashed inside of her, and as the distance increases between her and Derek it closes between herself and Mark. Emotionally the bond between them is thickened, and with that she starts to yearn for the physical.

It starts over an innocent joke and glasses of wine, she hit's him playfully on the arm and as revenge he pins her to the floor, tickling her until she's cursing him and gasping for air. She is sure she doesn't make the first move to kiss him, but everything feels hazy as she feels arousal for someone else but Derek for the first time in over a decade. The sex they have is fast, and her body seems to move of it's own accord as it searches for release. When she comes she has to bite her lip to stop herself from saying the name she is so familiar with, but her mind feels so far gone that she almost doesn't realise that tears have formed in her eyes and Mark is lying next to her, panting after his release.

Afterwards she lies in bed, and for the first time is relieved that Derek won't be coming up to sleep beside her. While the loneliness and physical desire have passed, that have only been replaced with guilt. She can't stop it though, and carries on a sexual pattern with Mark that her marriage should be following.

She hate's herself for doing it, hates Derek for making her feel so lonely and vulnerable, and hates Mark for continuing to sleep with her while she's so lonely and vulnerable. But she's started now, and finds that she cannot stop.

When the alarm goes off in the mornings she' already awake as she can't sleep with all these thoughts in her head. She knows Derek is downstairs and knows they will go through their usual morning routine.

They will say "I love you" and she will blink back tears on the way to work. Mark will see her later and she will feel desirable again.

She knows she will go to bed alone, and always wake up before the alarm goes off.


	2. Derek

Title: Three sides to every Triangle. 2/3  
Rating: PG for this chapter  
Pairing: Addison/Derek/Mark  
Summary: The story of Addison/Derek/Mark in New York. 3 Chapters from each side of the story. This one is Derek's.

Comments/criticism all welcome!  
Disclaimer: It's all Shonda. Not moi.

When Derek pulls up at the brownstone all he can think about is sleep.

He knows his wife is upstairs in bed but he won't be getting in beside her tonight.

He hasn't done so for a number of weeks now.

When he glances at his watch he time reads half past two, and he is well aware that his work pattern is steadily getting more erratic and each day he seems to come home later.

As he makes his way through the living room he sees signs of how his wife spent her evening, dinner for one, but enough wine for three. He knows that she's lonely and drinking to fill the void that he's leaving but he feels that whatever needs to be fixed can't get done on the limited time they seem to have together nowadays. It's just an excuse he thinks, lying down on the sofa which seems to have doubled up as his bed recently.

Your work is just an excuse.

He tries to block the voice out of his mind because deep down, its the truth.

He's always made time for her. Even when he had been working for hours in surgery, doing 24 hour shifts with no sleep, he still found time for her.

He remembers nights that he would come home much later than this and instead of heading for the sofa he would always go into their bed. If she was sleeping he would lie next to her, gently kissing her neck to tease her awake. He hasn't touched her like that in months. The last time they made love was quick, and much more about the physical release rather then being emotional and loving. He left straight after they had finished, muttering some excuse about a patient because he could bear to lie next to her and see the hurt and disappointment in her eyes.

It was around that time that he stopped going to bed and used the sofa instead.

He doesn't sleep well and knows that Addison doesn't either, and hasn't done for weeks.

He is awake in the morning when she is as he hears her moving around in the kitchen making coffee. She doesn't even come to see if he's there any more as she knows he is.

She used to come in and see him, waking him up with a barrage of questions about what he was doing there, and why he hadn't come up to bed.

She would sigh, and roll her eyes at him, giving him looks that said "I don't believe your excuses"

Some times she would make him a coffee, silently placing it beside him before getting herself ready for work.

Now she goes straight into the kitchen and then back upstairs, only acknowledging his presence when she leaves. Only is it then that he goes upstairs to their bed, the sheets still warm where she has laid, pillow sometimes damp from the tears he knows she cries, but won't admit.

He can only think that the reason for his distance is that he feels that he is in a rut. After ten years he supposes that it's perfectly normal. He doesn't want to drive her away, he doesn't want his marriage to end. He can only try and think of ways to fix them, and make it up to her.

The only way that he can get them back on track is to get back to basics. Just him and Addison together, no hospital, no work, no distractions.

He had picked up several brochures last week but hadn't found, or rather made time to sit down and talk to her about it.

Maybe tonight, he thinks. He knows that Mark will be coming over for dinner tonight so therefore he assumes that Addison will be a pleasant mood after wine and good company.

He'll leave early tonight, he decides, pick up her favourite wine and be the attentive husband that she deserves. The husband he has been for the last decade. Its a winning plan, he knows it will work and he relaxes in the hope that he will be able to get himself out of the rut he's found himself in, and get them back to where they should be.

He doesn't know that later on he'll leave his sobbing wife in pieces for a trailer in Seattle, that the brochures never get looked at, and the wine never gets drunk.

The marriage does not get fixed.


	3. Mark

Title: Three sides to every Triangle. 3/3  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Addison/Derek/Mark  
Summary: The story of Addison/Derek/Mark in New York. 3 Chapters from each side of the story. This final one is Mark's. Reviews are much appreciated!  
Disclaimer: It's all Shonda. Not moi.

When he looks back on it now he can pinpoint all the subtle hints that his friends marriage was in trouble.

Not that he did anything about it, he just thought it was a rocky patch.

He remembers how Addison's eyes could go from her normal sparkling blue to dull and teary in the space of a few words from Derek. They had had arguments before of course, but Mark never remembered them arguing for more then just a few days. That how it started, but unlike all the other times there never seemed to be any resolution, and their arguments became more frequent then ever.

He would always be the middle man, the soundboard for both of them to vent out their feelings on. During these arguments though, there was no venting, just sad smiles from Addison and sighs from Derek. That's when he knew that this was a completely different area of arguing that none of them had been in before.

He tried talking to Derek in the best way possible, pouring scotch down his throat to try and get him to open up, but Derek would always change the subject when he mentioned her name. He couldn't get anything out of Addison either.

He would hear her on the phone to him, disappointment in her voice when Derek said that he wouldn't be back home for hours, and sadness when she realised that he didn't care that he wasn't coming home.

He never thought that they would run into trouble. They were Addison and Derek, the strong power couple that didn't quit, they would always be together whereas he would always be the manwhore that slept with too many nurses and never called them back. Derek would laugh at his womanising antics and say that he loved to live vicariously through him and Addison would frown and say that he needed to change his ways or he would never be able to settle down.

Now he can't remember the last time that they did that, the only times he can actually remember them being together lately is fleetingly at work, and that's because they had too, not because they wanted too.

Still, it never entered his mind that they would separate, and he never though it would be because of him.

It all started innocently enough, after he had overheard Addison and Derek in his office, arguing about the fact that he wouldn't be home for dinner again. She had stormed past him, eyes threatening to cry tears and inside he felt something snap. He tells himself that it's just because he's tired of seeing her upset, that he's just being a friend, and that's why he's inviting himself over to dinner.

He brings the wine, and she cooks albeit badly, and over dessert and a second bottle of wine he finally sees her relax and laugh for the first time in months. He's missed seeing her like this, and when they move into the living room he has to keep reminding himself that its Addison.

His friend's wife.

However his body, and his heart are threatening to betray him everything she brushes up near him. About 10 minutes later she playfully hits him on the arm and they do betray him, but he doesn't care. All he can think about is that she's kissing him back, and that her hands are touching him, shaking slightly, but when his moves to kiss her neck she moans like she hasn't been touched for a while.

He can feel her desire, and as his hands move to unbutton her shirt he briefly wonders why she isn't stopping him, but as she breathes his name into his mouth his body detaches from his mind and he physically needs her.

It happens so fast that it feels like mere seconds until both their clothes have been removed and he's kissing her feverishly, his hands trying to touch all of her, all at once because he may never get the chance to touch her again.

When she comes he asks her to open her eyes, but she keeps them tightly closed and he fleetingly wonders if its because she doesn't want to open them and see that it's him.

When he comes he doesn't even care if she was thinking about him or not because all he can think about is her, and that if he never got to touch her again then he would be content just knowing that he made laugh, and feel desirable again, and her husband hasn't been able to do that for her in months.


End file.
